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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I love breakfast. It's by far my favorite meal of the day. It's so friendly and it even plays nice with lunch and hosts fabulous brunches on the weekends. It shares with you smoky bacon, luscious omelets, gooey eggs benedict, saccharine french toast, and heaping bowls of fresh fruit. How can you not love it? Right now though, my favorite player is a humble waffle.

I'm a bit late in telling you this, okay, very late, but last month a group of food bloggers got together and created a small cookbook to raise money for Haiti. I'm pretty sure it's no longer up for sale, but I was able to nab one at the last minute. For one, I can tell you that I'll definitely be ordering from Blurb. The quality of the book was phenomenal. But even better, the book was chock full of fabulous recipes, including this one for yeast based banana waffles. I made them for my dad's birthday brunch this past weekend along with some other goodies I'll be making again to share with you later, but the waffle maker called to me from the shelf, asking to be used again.

The nice thing about making your own waffles is that you can always freeze the ones you don't eat, so don't halve the recipe, even if you're making them just for yourself. You'll be able to pull them out and pop them into the toaster, the same way some people pop in Eggos. It's cheaper, just as convenient, and I promise you, these dimpled takes on Banana Bread in a waffle form are a whole heck of a lot yummier.

Warm up the milk a little bit and in a small bowl, whisk together the butter, milk and vanilla. Set aside, the mixture should be warm but not hot. If you don't warm the milk, the melted butter will solidify as soon as it's mixed...and that will sort of defeat the purpose.

In a large mixing bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, brown sugar, yeast, salt and spices. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, whisking until smooth. Stir in the beaten eggs. Cover the bowl loosely with saran wrap and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, but up to 24.

About 30 minutes before you want to make waffles, take the batter out of the refrigerator to come up to room temperature slightly. It should be doubled in size and the surface will be covered in bubbles. I forgot to do this the 2nd time I made them and I just needed to cook them a little longer, so if you're as absentminded as I am, all is not lost...at least where these waffles are concerned.

When ready to begin, stir the sour cream into the mashed bananas and then mix the fruit into the batter. It will deflate a bit, but don't worry, just use a light, quick hand to thoroughly combine.

Heat your waffle iron and bake the waffles as per the manufacturer's instruction.

I was able to get about a dozen waffles out of it...I ate one or two right off the iron, so I'm not counting them.